Be aware that doing this might remove your restore partition. That happened to me when I had to reformat my drive (because a Boot Camp installation was screwed up). Internet Restore still works, but having a restore partition makes things a little easier. There is a way to put the restore partition back, but I don't recall how to do that.

Be aware that doing this might remove your restore partition. That happened to me when I had to reformat my drive (because a Boot Camp installation was screwed up). Internet Restore still works, but having a restore partition makes things a little easier. There is a way to put the restore partition back, but I don't recall how to do that.

When you reboot while holding down Command-R, you will get several options. One is Disk Utility. If you click on that, you will see the standard Disk Utility. It will show (at least it did on mine) your hard drive and the recovery partition. Only erase the HD partition not the recovery partition.

I have done this several times. On a 128 gig SSD, on a MBA2010, it takes about 2 - 3 hours, start to finish, with downloading everything from the Internet.

I have done this several times. On a 128 gig SSD, on a MBA2010, it takes about 2 - 3 hours, start to finish, with downloading everything from the Internet.

Click to expand...

Can I ask why?

It worries me that people seem to have a need to completely reinstall the OS. That was a pain on Windows XP but it was easy to see why people did it. OS X doesn't have the same "registry bogging down" issues. I trust the reason for your reinstall(s) wasn't anything like that?

It worries me that people seem to have a need to completely reinstall the OS. That was a pain on Windows XP but it was easy to see why people did it. OS X doesn't have the same "registry bogging down" issues. I trust the reason for your reinstall(s) wasn't anything like that?

Click to expand...

In my case, I needed to reinstall OS X because I botched the re-installation of my Boot Camp partition. While Boot Camp itself works fine, don't try to use the Windows Setup repair tools to do a clean reinstall of Windows. It will overwrite the GUID table in the boot partition, which is what tells the Mac which partition to boot into first.

As for OS X, I have never had to reinstall it because it slowed down. However, before I sell an old Mac, I will usually "restore" it by reformatting it and reinstalling OS X.

Also, you don't have to worry about the 3 or 7 pass. Even on a normal hard drive those options are excessive for over 99% of the population. The only reason a person would do that is to make sure any slight variation in the magnetic charge of each bit wouldn't be detectable. SSD doesn't rely on magnetic charge for storage, so once you wipe it is wiped. There is no CSI type scenario where you could still read the data of a properly erased SSD.

Also, you don't have to worry about the 3 or 7 pass. Even on a normal hard drive those options are excessive for over 99% of the population. The only reason a person would do that is to make sure any slight variation in the magnetic charge of each bit wouldn't be detectable. SSD doesn't rely on magnetic charge for storage, so once you wipe it is wiped. There is no CSI type scenario where you could still read the data of a properly erased SSD.

Staff Member

Doesn't sound like the recovery partition is needed? Is there anything an average user would need it for?

Click to expand...

If you have a 2010 or newer Macbook you have a recovery system built into the system hardware (firmware/EFI) and it can perform the same function as the recovery system on the disk drive partition. The only thing you really require the drive partition version for is if you are going to enable Filevault2 as that boots from the drive recovery partition and then into the Filevault2 encrypted image.

MacRumors attracts a broad audience
of both consumers and professionals interested in
the latest technologies and products. We also boast an active community focused on
purchasing decisions and technical aspects of the iPhone, iPod, iPad, and Mac platforms.